A group of about 50 picketed in downtown Gainesville today to protest developers Ken McGurn and Nathan Collier, who, the protester believe, are insensitive to the plight of homeless as they lobby City Hall to keep a meal limit on soup kitchens.

“Developers must be beat. Everyone deserves to eat,” they chanted outside of the Hippodrome State Theatre, near the Sun Center complex that McGurn owns.

Later, they planned to head north to Collier’s offices. Police officers stood by, but the protesters were within their rights as they marched on the sidewalk.

As we reported earlier, Collier, whose Collier Companies owns a number of apartment complexes in Gainesville, including Arlington Square downtown, last month wrote an email to commissioners asking them to keep the limit.

“Gainesville’s Downtown plaza, instead of being an inviting location for families to converge has become a DMZ, occupied by an army of daytime campers,” Collier wrote. “I applaud the kind instincts of those who wish to help those in need, BUT not in a manner and a location that hurts so many others who work so hard to make downtown a pleasant place to live. Why must the vagrants take over one of the very best locations the City has to offer?”

As we also previously noted, McGurn categorically referred to homeless people as criminals and “rapists” in an interview with the filmmakers of “Civil Indigent,” the documentary about homeless advocate Pat Fitzpatrick.

On March 31, the City Plan Board, which advises the City Commission on planning issues, voted unanimously to recommend St. Francis House’s petition to change the meal limit ordinance to allow a three-hour window for soup kitchens to serve meals. The matter is expected to come to the commission next month.

Joe Cenker, with the Coalition to End the Meal Limit Now, said the group was protesting those two developers because of their “unfair influence over City Hall” regarding the 130-meals-per-day limit, which currently only impacts the St. Francis House on South Main Street.

About This Blog

County Lines and City Limits follows Gainesville and Alachua County politics and government from City Hall to the statehouse.

Morgan Watkins, a University of Florida grad, joined the Sun in August 2012 as its county government reporter. She keeps you updated on what’s happening inside county meetings and outside in local neighborhoods. If you think something might make a good story, let her know at morgan.watkins@gvillesun.com.